Taking the oath of office for a second time, with an eye on a potential run for president, Christie’s avoidance of any mention of two controversies swirling around his administration was predictable. It couldn’t erase them from the room, however, particularly juxtaposed against Christie’s calls for bipartisanship.

Is bipartisanship even possible, given the Legislature’s investigation of the bridge scandal and recent Republican efforts to undercut it by questioning its motivations?

“Absolutely, we’ve got the opportunity,” said Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean Jr., R-Union, who added that there have been partisan battles over the last four years as well as progress on things like revamping public workers’ pensions and health benefits and teacher tenure rules.

“Over the course of the last four years, anybody who says it’s been a walk in the park is deluding themselves,” Kean said.

In his address at the Trenton War Memorial, Christie said Trenton’s leaders had “put aside political partisanship on the important issues to our people” in his first term and that voters endorsed that approach by re-electing him with 60 percent of the vote, the largest plurality since Gov. Thomas Kean’s re-election in 1985.

“And it wasn’t just some of our people who affirmed this course,” Christie said. “It was not a vocal plurality like four years ago. No, this time, it was the largest and loudest voice of affirmation that the people of our state have given to any direction in three decades.”

Unlike his first inaugural four years ago, Christie didn’t make a dramatic gesture about bipartisanship by calling legislative leaders over for a handshake; that might have been awkward, given that they had announced a joint investigative committee less than two hours earlier that will have subpoena power to examine current and former members of Christie’s office for any involvement in planning or concealing the reason for last September’s lane closures at the George Washington Bridge.

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But Christie did make a few calls for cross-aisle cooperation. He said people “have to be willing to play outside the red and blue boxes that the media pundits put us in” and that “there are times when we need to get along and just get things done.”

“We cannot fall victim to the attitude of Washington, D.C., the attitude that says I am always right and you are always wrong. The attitude that puts everyone into a box that they are not permitted to leave. The attitude that puts political victories ahead of policy agreements. The belief that compromise is a dirty word,” Christie said.

Compromise might be a rarer commodity in Christie’s second term, particularly if he runs for president — a decision he’d have to make next year, given the complexities and fundraising demands of a national campaign. Democrats may want to deny him victories; Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, a frequent ally, deemed Christie’s speech “long on rhetoric and short on solutions.” The bridge investigation seems likely to last for months.

Assemblyman John Wisnieweski, D-Middlesex, who is due to be co-chairman of the joint legislative investigative committee looking into the bridge lane closings, called Christie’s speech a “good address.”

But, not mentioning the investigation, Wisniewski said Christie’s speech did not address “the Achilles heal of every New Jersey budget — how do you pay for it? He spoke about a tax cut, but how do you pay for it?”

That, along with similar Sweeney comments, telegraphed how Democrats may be approaching Christie’s second term.

Even without the bridge incident, Democrats were unlikely to cooperate as much with Christie, said Monmouth University political scientist Patrick Murray.

“Quite frankly, it wasn’t going to happen in the same way to begin with,” Murray said. “.... Right now, with what’s going on in his career and the potential for his political future is that the Democrats aren’t going to be as willing to work with him simply because they’re looking to their own future. Being an enabler of Chris Christie is probably not going to help them.

“It was always going to be somewhat less,” Murray said. “We were always expecting a less ambitious agenda in the second term, simply because he was quickly going to turn his attention towards national issues. Now, the Democrats may not give him even the small wins that he wants because he’s under a cloud right now.”